Lögberg-Heimskringla - 24.02.1995, Page 3

Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 24. febrúar 1995 • 3
The
Welcome to
my little cor-
ner of the
world.
Faithful readers of Lögberg-
Heimskringla may have noticed my
by-line appearing in this space in the
last few weeks. Readers doing
penance for some particularly serious
sin may actually have read the
accompanying articles and been
wondering what’s going on. Why is
there this oasis of insanity in the oth-
erwise reasonable, rational and
respectable pages of this newspaper?
An explanation would perhaps
have been appropriate at the begin-
ning, but better late than never, as
the fellow said who was always a day
late and a dollar short. It is not really,
as some might believe, some kind of
editorial droit de seigneur being exer-
cised by the editor-in-chief (such an
important-sounding title to go with
the scruffy-looking picture that
accompanies these articles; perhaps
we could get a model to stand in.)
Your daughters are still safe.
This is nothing so grand as all
that. It is simply my place, one little
corner of the paper where I can tell
you what’s happening at the paper,
what we’re doing and why and how
things are going. It is also a place
where I can think out loud, reflect on
the newspaper or on the community
at large and offer it to you for what
it’s worth.
This is also only my corner, where
I can write whatever I want. No one
can tell me what to say or not to say,
not the board of directors, whose
reaction to the some of the stuff I
write ranges from simple puzzlement
through hand-wringing to hair-
pulling to outright apoplexy; not the
other staff meinbers; not even my
wife, who is beginning to wonder
what she did in a previous life that
she should suffer so now.
As a result of this, no one else is
responsible for what I write. If you
want to horsewhip someone or throw
someone through a window after
reading what you see here, I am your
man, not anybody else.
If this seems strange to you, it is
because newspapers are strange
things. They are sometimes referred
to as a miracle, because anyone look-
ing at the theory of how they are pro-
duced would probably come to the
conclusion that it is simply not possi-
ble to do. Like the fellow who saw a
giraffe for the first time and declared
“there ain’t no such animal”, a news-
paper seems to defy all the rules or
order and organization — you could
regard it as living support for the the-
ory of chaos.
And yet, as deadline approaches,
the newspaper does come together,
whether it be one of the big dailies or
a small weekly like this one.
Somehow, all the people involved,
who most of the time don’t seem to
have any idea what they are doing,
let alone what the others are doing,
come together at last to produce a
newspaper for you to read.
It is that apparent chaos that
Times They Are A Changin9
seems to give newspapers their
unique life, the richness and variety,
the pleasures and the irritations that
are found when you open its pages.
You will find a lot more of all those
things in the Sunday edition of the
New York Times than you will here,
because one Sunday edition of the
Times is probably as big as six whole
months of the output of Lögberg-
Heimskringla. But the New York
Times has vast editorial resources
and great wealth behind it. Lögberg-
Heimskringla has a bare-bones staff
and is always broke. Perhaps, for
those reásons, it is the greater mira-
cle.
There is another, more important,
element to its miraculous nature,
however. That is the nature of the
support that keeps it alive. That is to
say, that reason is you, the sub-
scribers who continue to subscribe,
the people of modest means who dig
into their pockets to make a contri-
bution, however small, toward the
survival of the paper. A large part of
that reason is the innumerable con-
tributors who labour for nothing to
write for the paper, to keep us
informed about what is going on and
what they are thinking about a rain-
bow of subjects; it includes staff
members such as Gunnur Isfeld and
Laurie Oleson, who work long and
hard for little reward to ensure that
out of the chaos that surrounds the
editor-in-chief in particular, a news-
paper finally emerges each week;
Barbara Gislason of Keystone
Graphics who does the design, mak-
ing a silk purse out of the sow’s ear I
give her; and it includes the volunteer
efforts of the membérs of the board
of directors, who work equally hard
with little thanks to ensure that not
only does the paper appear each
week, but that it survivés from year to
year.
inally, it includes the govern-
ment of Iceland and the good-
will of the Icelandic people.
They are far more important than the
financial support that they give to the
newspaper and without which
Lögberg-Heimskringla would proba-
bly not survive. They are most impor-
tant in the more intangible ways.
This newspaper’s only reason for
being is to help preserve the
Icelandic culture and tradition in
North America. More than 100 years
after the main thrust of immigration
to this continent, it might seem like
Donations to
Lögberg-Heimskringla Inc.
Stefania Sveinbjamardóttir, Yeoman Farm
Parham, ON......................$12.55
Verma Zahorodny, Lundar, MB......$20.00
August & Francesjohnson,
Lanark, ON......................$22.55
J.C. Benedict, Calgary, AB........$12.55
Margaretjosephson, Wynyard, SK...$12.55
Kari Oleson, Gimli, MB............$22.65
Helgi & Lillian Austman, Gimli, MB....$15.00
In memory of Stefania Motris, of White
Rock, BC, from Bertha Hallson,
Winnipeg, MB....................$25.00
V
an odd thing for such a small group
to cling to so tenaciously. Yet cling
we do. That tenacity is helped
immensely by the moral and material
support from Iceland. The fact that
people there are not willing to write
us off as lost gives us all the more
reason to refúse to be written off.
hen I was in Iceland last
June, I was introduced to
many people as a joumalist
with Lögberg-Heimskringla, a North
American newspaper concerned with
things Icelandic. In other countries,
in other lands, in other cultures,
under similar circumstances, I might
have been treated as quaint anachro-
nism, a mildly interesting curiosity.
In Iceland, however, I was greeted
with affection and support and with
respect, perhaps more respect than I
personally deserve. Be that as it may,
the respect was not really for me, it
was for the newspaper that I repre-
sented and the cause this newspaper
itself represents. Lögberg-Heims-
kringla was treated with the same
dignity and level of co-operation as
major European and North American
dailies, a considerable honor for the
institution of the newspaper.
Lögberg-Heimskringla is not, of
course, the only organization work-
ing to maintain the Icelandic roots in
North America. It is not a lonely job
at all. The Department of Icelandic at
the University of Manitoba — itself,
by its very existence, a tribute to the
strength of those roots — contínues
to work in the cause under the direc-
tion of Kirsten Wolf, as the front
page of the paper this week testifies.
The Icelandic National League works
diligently to ensure that our heritage
is not lost and the countless
Icelandic clubs and organizations
across Canada and the United States
are in their own health the healthiest
signs of the success of the determina-
tion of the Icelandic people in North
America to maintain the ties and tra-
ditions even as they join the main-
stream of North American society.
Neither is the job a static thing. It
changes as the circumstances of the
Icelandic community in North
America change, and the guardians
must change with it. This is a very
different newspaper than it was 30
years ago; 30 years from now it will
be very different again. I have my
ideas of what direction that change
should take. You probably do too.
You will get an idea from the pages
of this newspaper what I think. Let’s
see what you think on the pages of
Lögberg-Heimskringla as well. Write
so much, in fact, that you squeeze me
out of this comer.
Advance poll for
election in lceland
People eligible to vote in the
Icelandic elections may do so
at an advance poll to be held
at the office of the Consul-General of
Iceland in Winnipeg. For more infor-
mation please call 949-2214.
r
]
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c^^íc^e JVacv/
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